Amgen pleads guilty to misbranding anemia drug

Amgen Inc., the world’s largest biotechnology company, pleaded guilty to misbranding its anemia medication Aranesp and agreed to pay $150 million in fines and penalties.

The company, based in Thousand Oaks, Calif., entered a guilty plea Monday to one misdemeanor charge before U.S. District Judge Sterling Johnson in Brooklyn, N.Y. Johnson said he will decide tomorrow whether to accept the deal.

“On behalf of the company, I offer a plea of guilty to the misbranding charge,” Amgen’s general counsel David Scott told the judge in court.

Amgen sought to gain market share by offering Aranesp for uses not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Burlingame said at the hearing.

Last month, the company disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it expected to pay $806 million to settle federal civil and criminal investigations related to its sales and marketing practices. The cases are pending in the states of Washington and New York.

The company announced in October 2011 that it took a $780 million charge to cover the costs of settling civil and criminal probes into whether it engaged in improper sales of drugs, including Aranesp. At least 15 states have sued the company and alleged that it encouraged doctors to overbill third-party payers, including Medicaid, for Aranesp prescriptions.